Bleeding Edge is Ninja Theory’s next game. Due out at the end of March, the multiplayer, class-based brawler will be available on Xbox Game Pass on day one, like Gears 5 before it. Because of this, developer Ninja Theory is keen to make a good first impression on the type of player who doesn’t already know what it is. “There’s a fair bit of focus at the moment on the new player experience,” creative director Rahni Tucker told Gamesindustry. “Coming to Game Pass changes things a little bit compared to if we were selling the game outright.” Because of the nature of Game Pass, Ninja Theory can’t guarantee that everyone who jumps in will be familiar with multiplayer action games, or even class-based, objective-based games. This is why Bleeding Edge needed to communicate some aspects of its design in a way that those players would understand.
“[…] if you’ve come to the game through Game Pass and maybe you don’t know so much about this type of genre, it can be a little harder to get into the game,” she explained. “Maybe [those players] don’t know all of the buttons, maybe they don’t know how the game modes work, so we’re trying to focus on that and make sure there’s a nice ramp for new players coming into the game.” Bleeding Edge includes a tutorial, and a Dojo that lets you take on AI-controlled characters, which Ninja Theory hopes will smooth out the initial learning curve. Bleeding Edge is out March 24 on PC and Xbox One. Ninja Theory will be hosting limited beta tests between now and launch.
